Anthony Senter
Anthony Senter (born 1955) is an American mobster and a former member of the DeMeo crew in the New York Gambino crime family. Biography and DeMeo crew Born in Canarsie, Brooklyn, Anthony Michael Senter was a nephew of Gambino associate Robert Senter. His uncle Robert was the owner of Canarsie Recycling Company located at 8029 Foster Avenue in Canarsie. He is also the cousin of Dominic Vulpis. Anthony was born to a first generation emigrant, Michael Senter from Rovereto, Italy and mother. Anthony Senter was married to an Italian-American woman on July 24, 1977 at a catering hall in Canarsie, Brooklyn. The wedding was attending by many criminals including Roy DeMeo. The DeMeo crew was notorious for their ruthless violence. The crew was suspected to be involved in 75 to 200 murders throughout the mid 1970s and into the early 1980s, when the majority of the crew members still alive were brought to justice. Joseph Testa and Anthony Senter became known as the "Gemini twins" because they were always together. It was said by associates who knew the friends well that Joseph would start a sentence and Anthony would finish it. Chris Rosenberg hired Senter and Testa to wax his Corvette and Porsche and steal cars for him. Rosenberg introduced his friends Senter and Testa to Roy DeMeo and then joined his crew. Senter and Testa were experienced car thiefs and full-blooded Italians. DeMeo, Rosenberg, Senter and Testa made up the core group of the DeMeo crew. Anthony was raised in a turbulent household and had a contemptuous view of the outside legitimate world's ways which he fostered when growing up. While Anthony quit high school before Joseph, for the most part whatever Joseph did, Anthony followed. Joseph, two months older and quicker on his feet than Anthony, was one of nine children born to a transport truck driver and a housewife. Growing up, mutual friends liked Anthony more than Joseph, but always ran to Joey when problems arose. When Joseph was fifteen, a thirteen year old neighbour was mugged by a knife wielding Puerto-Rican from East New York. The assaulted victim complained to Joseph, who rounded up Anthony, and a group led by Joseph borrowed someone's car and spent the day searching for the assailant. In 1973, when Joseph himself nearly died in a bar fight with a Puerto-Rican opponent after the blade punctured his lung, Anthony hunted the Puerto-Rican down and nearly beat him to death with his fists. Anthony stood at 5'11", two inches taller than Joey. Before following Joey into Rosenberg and DeMeo's world of organized crime, he worked at his father's small debris removal business and his uncle Robert's sanitation company. He only had one sibling, a sister. His parents divorced when he was eight, then remarried one another when he was fourteen. By then he was a full fledged criminal. Anthony was a nephew of notorious Gambino crime family associate, Robert Senter who gained notoriety for the kidnapping and murder of Emmanuel Gambino, the nephew of Gambino crime family boss Carlo Gambino and nephew of Paul Castellano. Robert Senter was indebted to Emmanuel Gambino, the nephew of mob family patriarch Carlo Gambino for $21,000. Robert and an associate, an Irish-American named John Kilcullen gained notoriety as the individuals having actually orchestrated the kidnapping of Emanuel Gambino. On December 4, 1972, Robert Senter was arrested and confessed to the murder of Gambino. He also revealed the identities of Richard Chaisson and Warren Schurman who were his two accomplices. On June 1, 1973, Robert pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison he was released in 1988. Reputation Testa was considered more dangerous by reputation than him on the streets among criminal associates.By 1970, Anthony already had been convicted of auto theft three times when he was twelve years old. Joseph and Anthony were successful in having all of their cases dismissed because they were juveniles at the time. Senter was an accomplished car thief who was a large earner for the Gemini Lounge crew, but was highly disliked by Albert DeMeo, the son of Roy DeMeo. Albert's personal judgement of Senter was that, "there was something slick and phony about him". He had a collapsed lung from a near fatal knife fight and chain smoked. He was always to be seen pressing his hand against his chest and complaining that he couldn't breathe. When Senter joined the DeMeo crew, he gained a reputation as a sadistic killer who enjoyed mutilating his victims. Senter also gained a reputation for providing the crew with significant revenue from auto theft. Senter's best friend in the DeMeo crew was mobster Joseph Testa. Lucchese family After the murder of Roy DeMeo (which Senter and Testa may have participated in), Senter and Testa drifted into the Lucchese crime family. According to former Lucchese consigliere Anthony Casso, they were responsible for the murder on June 13, 1986 of Russian-American gangster Vladimir Reznikov. Reznikov had reportedly threatened the life and family of Marat Balagula, a Ukrainian immigrant who ruled the Russian Mafia in Brighton Beach. Balagula, who was then masterminding a multi-million dollar gasoline bootlegging operation, had been paying tribute to the Five Families, who regarded him as their biggest moneymaker after drugs. Arrest and aftermath On September 14, 1989, Anthony Senter was sentenced to life imprisonment. As of October 2018, Senter continues to serve his sentence at the United States Penitentiary (USP) Allenwood. His Register Number is 07555-054. In 1994, it was discovered that pension dues were being paid into a Teamsters pension account in Senter's name by a cousin of Senter, one Dominic Vulpis, who owned a garbage company. A court investigator determined that $30,000 of dues had been paid into the account over a six-year period all the while Senter was in prison on a life sentence. Union officials said Senter could have qualified for a pension of $1,400 a month if the payments by Canarsie Recycling had continued for another five years. Senter will not collect the pension - the Teamsters disqualified Senter as a member and barred his pension. It is unclear if Senter's cousin, Dominic Vulpis, or the garbage company he owns received a refund of the fraudulent dues. Category:Gambino Crime Family Category:DeMeo Crew Category:Associates Category:Lucchese Crime Family Category:Hitmen